If you have a deep interest and anything resembling the skills required, go for it. Perseverance is the most important characteristic.

That said, Gladwell is completely FOS about the 10,000 hours — it bears repeating completely Full Of Sh*t. Not only is "mastery" ill-defined, but so is what counts as "practice", and it completely ignores that some people will after 10K hours fail to get to the top, and others can get to the top of other fields in less than 1000 hours (depending on how it is counted).

And, while perseverance is key, dumb perseverance is not — how you learn counts for a LOT.

The best key I've found is to seek out people at the top of the field and learn from them. Either direct in classes if possible, or from their books. You will eventually need to learn the best ways of thinking about whatever the field is, and it is better to learn the best way at the outset, than relearning it 5 times on the way up. The simplified approach at the outset may be initially rewarding, but it is a waste of time.

Also be sure to ask all the 'dumb' questions about discrepancies or things that don't add up, or edge cases. Sometimes, those reveal the most essential elements that you need to progress. As an example of how this can work in far-flung fields of endeavor, when I was alpine ski racing, at one pre-season camp, I was flailing, skiing worse than the previous year, trying with all my might to implement what the coach was saying, but clearly not understanding. Fortunately, he was willing to put up with me as I asked in the evening what was going on, and we argued for hours, with me finally asking "where does that force come from?", and we looked a bit deeper and figured out a subtle bit of how the initiation of the term was a bit different than he described. That answer was the key, and literally from the first run the next day, I improved rapidly. In a completely different field, I went to a C++ conference class series with Bjarne Stroustrup, and in an after-session question, I asked what I thought might be a dumb question, but went ahead anyway, "was I spending too much time on naming conventions on my projects?", because I was worried that I was wasting time. I got a wonderfully detailed and concise answer that was basically "NO, it is worth all that up front-investment, especially for the way it helps you think about the structure ahead of time.".

So, persevere, dig and ask those peculiar questions (obviously, not the 'dumb' ones that can be easily answered by looking it up, but the 'dumb' ones that seem like they ought to be obvious, but aren't explicit.).

Go for it, and I wish you good fortune in your new endeavor. It'll probably take longer than you like, but it's likely worth it.